Charles R. Smith

Charles R. Smith is an award-winning playwright and member of the Playwrights Ensemble of the Tony Award–winning Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago. He is also Distinguished Professor of Theatre at Ohio University, where he heads the Professional Playwriting Program. His plays explore contemporary issues of race, identity, and politics in America.

This first-ever collection of five award-winning plays by Charles Smith, one of the nation’s leading African American playwrights, is a journey down the complex road of race and history.

“The strengths of Smith’s theatre collection are numerous and exhilarating. His characters are original and surprising, often vexing and exasperating, but they each have their piece to contribute. Smith’s dramas are persuasive without being didactic, and without suggesting simple conclusions. They are eloquent and poignant, but with a punch. Something like Carson McCullers without the malaise, or Spike Lee without the chatter. These are smart, profoundly felt, demanding scripts that refuse to pander to our expectations. The Gospel According to James and Other Plays belongs on the shelf of anyone with a sincere love for relevant, powerful theatre.”